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It didn’t take long for Heath Ledger’s rental apartment in SoHo to go back on the market.

We hear that the fourth-floor loft at 421 Broome St., where the actor met his demise as a result of mixing an assortment of drugs on Jan. 22, is already quietly being shopped around.

“You don’t wait around in a hot rental market like this,” says one broker. “As ghoulish as it sounds, people will

rent that place in a heartbeat, especially when the vacancy rate is below 1 percent.”

The spacious 4,400-square-foot apartment, which Ledger began renting last September for approximately $22,000 a month, includes three bedrooms, 2½baths, an office, laundry room, gourmet kitchen and a small balcony.

Also featured are 15-foot tin ceilings, cast-iron columns, exposed-brick walls and a wood-burning fireplace.

Sources say it’s now being offered for around $25,000 a month.

But for all that money you’re still going to have to open the lobby door and haul your own packages. Instead of a doorman, the five-unit building uses an audio/visual intercom system with key-locked elevator.

Calls to the previous listing broker, the Corcoran Group’s Darren Kearns, were not returned. The owner of the building, Donald A. Burns – who recently sold “Old Trees,” his Southampton estate that had a $48 million price tag – could not be reached for comment.

Loss Angeles

The housing-market crunch isn’t just hitting small-time buyers on Main Street – Hollywood stars are also feeling the pain,

Buyers in the $3 million to $6 million range are getting crushed as part of a property downturn across Los Angeles, and the list of losses includes some famous names.

Pop rocker Avril Lavigne has had to drop the price of her home near Mulholland Drive from $6.9 million to $5.8 million, Forbes magazine reported on its Web site yesterday. Lavigne is taking a bath on the price, even though the house has five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a tennis court and a pool.

TV star and former Lindsay Lohan flame Wilmer Valderrama is also among the losers. He sold his home in the San Fernando Valley for $1.75 million, which was $200,000 less than he paid for it.

Ed McMahon has finally found something that doesn’t make him laugh. He was forced to put his 7,000-square-foot Beverly Hills home on the market for $5.7 million. That’s after shelling out $7.7 million for it two years ago.

Movie stars and other rich-and-famous types may want to leave the Left Coast for the Hamptons. New York, including the celebrity-packed towns out on Long Island, has been relatively free from the crunch, industry experts said.

There have been some slight discounts in the $5 million to $10 million range.

Also, there have been a few estates that have seen drops in prices, but those are considered isolated incidents. One example is Three Ponds Farm in Bridgehampton, which had its price drop from $75 million to $68 million.

According to city transfers, a four-bedroom, 4½-bath condo at 15 Central Park West has been purchased in the name of his wife, Abigail, for $13.1 million.

The 3,400-square-foot new- construction unit on the 10th floor features a living room, dining room and master bedroom that overlook the park. Also included is a gallery, breakfast room and gourmet kitchen.

Wexner founded The Limited clothing empire and also owns Victoria’s Secret, Express and Henri Bendel. He and his wife have a $50 million, 1,000-acre estate in (scratch, scratch?) Ohio, which is considered their home base.

While his new digs sound pretty impressive, it pales in comparison to one of Wexner’s former Manhattan properties, a townhouse of 45,000 square feet on East 71st Street that he sold to his protege, the lusty Jeffrey

We are also hearing that Heather Randall, the widow of Tony Randall – and the mother of the actor’s two children – is moving into a similarly sized four-bedroom apartment at 15 CPW. Last September, Citigroup investment big Vikram Pandit bought Randall’s 10-room spread at the Beresford for $17.85 million – about $350,000 more than it was listed for last May. Buyers in Randall’s and Wexner’s new building include Denzel Washington, Sting, Sanford Weill and lead-footed Jeff Gordon.

Safe house

Another fancy apartment has changed hands at the venerable 740 Park Ave. co-op building – this time for $32 million.

The estate of Mosler Safe heiress Janet Coleman sold the 14-room duplex apartment to David Randall Winn and his wife, Tamara Sarah Winn, otherwise known as one of industrialist Ira Rennert’s two fortunate daughters.

Michael Gross, the author of the book “740 Park,” first reported that a contract had been signed – while the New York Observer reported that Rennert was buying the apartment for his daughter. Gross tells us the units in the vaunted building are “some of the grandest apartments in New York. Even the great new apartment developments of today simply don’t have the quality [craftmanship] of 740 Park, which was built for the ages. We’ll have to see how these other buildings age.”